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Girl Scouts build homesfor ducks at Clarksville park

Tony Centonze
Published 4:25 p.m. CT July 15, 2014

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Kayla Calhoun, left, and Alaura Peck carve grooves into their wood duck nesting box at Dunbar Cave on Monday. The grooves give the hatchlings traction to move in and out of the box.
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Tony Centonze/For The Leaf-Chronicle
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Jason Reed is working with Tennessee State parks and an AmeriCorps-funded grant program. "We are conducting Service Learning Projects at State Parks all over Tennessee," said Reed. “It's sort of an enviornmental stewardship to raise awareness of the natural wildlife."

Wood ducks usually build nests in rotted trees or woodpecker holes, but are having trouble finding places to lay their eggs and keep them safe from their natural predators.

"Today, with the help of these volunteers, we are building six nesting boxes for wood ducks," said Reed. “The boxes will be mounted on steel poles 4-6 feet off the ground, and equipped with predator guards, so we're hoping to see a real increase in the wood duck population here at the park."

Local Girl Scout troop leader Ashley Cothren was instrumental in bringing the project to Dunbar Cave. “I was looking for an interesting project for the older Scouts," said Cothren. “We began putting this together in May and I'm pleased that we have 13 girls here today, having fun and earning their Community Service Pins.”

Seventh-grader and member of G.S.Troop 2369 Bethany Walsh explained why she was excited to participate in the project. "I'm hoping to earn my Silver Award, so I needed some service hours," said Walsh. "I want to be a science teacher one day. I think this is really fun and interesting."

The construction of the boxes went quickly, as the volunteers worked with plans downloaded from Ducks Unlimited. The next step is to set the steel poles, mount the boxes and the predator guards and enjoy the results, which, according to Reed, should appear quickly.

"The female pairs up with a male, selects a nesting site, and then they lay anywhere from 6 to 16 eggs per nesting,” Reed said. “And wood ducks are rare in that they can nest twice a year. With these nesting boxes, I believe that most of these eggs will now be successfully hatched."